Trish Kritek (she/her): Right.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Welcome, everybody. I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen, and we'll get started. I'm sure there'll be some more people who pop in.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I'm. Sure people are transitioning from whatever they were doing prior to 10'clock to coming on to a workshop, so we'll see some people pop in as we go, but
Trish Kritek (she/her): welcome. My name is Trish Kritek. It's my pleasure to be joined by Anne Browning today to focus on strategies for effective communication. As many of you know, I'm the vice dean for Faculty Affairs in the School of Medicine.
and a professor in the Department of Medicine Division of Pulmonary Critical care and sleep medicine. Mostly a critical care doc.
Trish Kritek (she/her): in my clinical life, and and maybe you want to just introduce yourself as well.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Sure. Hello, Everyone Happy Monday. My name is Aaron Browning, and I am the associate team for well being within the school of medicine. My background is actually in education. Phd. In leadership of policy studies so bit of a different lens and trish, and I do a lot of communicating
Trish Kritek (she/her): we do, and it's great to work with somebody who has a different lens, and I encourage that for everyone. So our plan for today is to start off by learning about a little bit about you. So we have a sense of who's in the room, even though we're in a virtual space, it's a good for us to know a little bit about who's with us, and then we'll spend some time talking about types of communication
Trish Kritek (she/her): approaches to communication, and and then really pivot to applying that to some cases for discussion. So you know, in the disclosures part of this talk, we're gonna have you communicate with each other a little bit as part of this activity. So we'll be putting you in small groups to have some conversation.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and we'll use a tool called Slide. Oh, so we can hear your voices through that tool over and over again, and then we'll give you hopefully some strategies to employ as you move forward, and you think about effective communication with your team with a larger community, with folks who you partner with, etc. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): with no further ado. It's helpful for us to know who's in the room with us, so we'll just ask you 2 questions, and as I said, we'll use a tool called Slido. You can grab your smartphone and scan that QR. Code, or you can type in sido.com and put in the code
Trish Kritek (she/her): that's on the screen. And maybe we're just gonna ask you 2 questions. So the first one is, Where do you work? And you can answer that. However you want, and this is for us to know who's in the room, and for you to know who else is in the room with you.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and we'll see it all kind of come up on the screen, which is, which is nice.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So Harbor View.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Seattle, Children's and interventional cardiology.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Not necessarily those 2 together at the boys. He'd be a great, so we have folks from outside of Seattle, which is wonderful Academic affairs. More people from children in the Harbor View Northwest Midwives Clinic Great the School of Medicine Lab Medicine Fred Hutch. So multiple sites across you. Doesn't let us, in
Trish Kritek (she/her): emergency department overlook. So we have people in lots of different clinical settings, physical therapy program and health sciences. Mont: like Seattle Children's Scri. So research research spaces
Trish Kritek (she/her): looks like we have teachers and clinicians and scientists all mixed in.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Oh, Alaska, I love how it's Tiny. Next to Harbor View. So there's one person from Alaska, probably here, which is great. I look so glad to have you
Trish Kritek (she/her): few more coming up. We'll watch for a second longer.
Trish Kritek (she/her): V. A Puget Sound wonderful more folks in the School of Medicine. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): lots of people from Hard review children in the School of Medicine, and lots of other places that people are working, and some of you kind of answer this question already. But the second question is, what do you? What is it that you do. And again you can answer this. However, you want to answer it, whatever it is that you want to share with the group about what it is that you do.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And as you do this I'm thinking about all the different ways of people in these different spaces might need to communicate to patients and families, to clinical teams, to research teams, to
Trish Kritek (she/her): students or learners.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Research Ob. Joanne Administration teach. So again, I already faculty physician, clinical education, accreditation that's a medical school, midwife, anesthesia, anesthesiology, and ethics. Another Doc Radon, Med. On
Trish Kritek (she/her): physician scientists. I was a thema bonk all of a sudden more faculty folks who teach lab genetic counselor, teach and administrate. That's kind of like me. Position, hospice, interventional cardiology and research
Trish Kritek (she/her): question, scholar, madad research, clinical.
Trish Kritek (she/her): We have docs and nurse practitioners, clinicians and tea lots and lots of different things. So people who are leading in the world to clinical spaces, research bases, spaces, and education spaces, and then a lot of different hats that people are wearing, which I think is super common in our academic spaces, and
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think I can easily start to envision all the different places where you might be communicating. So thank you. That's helpful for us to kind of have a sense of
Trish Kritek (she/her): who we're working with and for you to know who you'll be talking with. and I appreciate the folks who use the chat
Trish Kritek (she/her): if you can't get side to work throughout the the day feel free to use the chat. It's less anonymous, but it works just fine as well
Trish Kritek (she/her): all right
Trish Kritek (she/her): with that we're going to jump into. Thank you, co-director of the App Fellowship, as well jump into kind of what we're going to talk about. Now. Hand hand the mic over to Anne.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Sure. So today we're gonna think about communication, and we'll even start by saying that. You know
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: there are different modes of communication, verbal and non verbal, and we'll mostly talk about kind of verbal communication, but we want to actually pause. And first acknowledge that there's a lot of ways in which we say a lot just by how we are showing up and and taking up space. Physically.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: it has been an interesting thing to to go through the last several years, and in face to face encounters so often you wearing masks. And how much can you actually read and understand how someone is is kind of feeling.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: even when you are limited. What you can can see. How are we relying differently on language? But how we physically take up space in our arms, crossed? Are we covering our face. So we know, like all of that is read by the people we're communicating to.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and that's actually ends up, being kind of an important starting point to to think about paying attention to our bodies and space, as is kind of a first step, knowing that nonverbal communication is quite a big deal.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Nutrition has my slides for me. Thank you. In fact, if we look at so this is, you know.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: there's some kind of variability on how much folks debate the percentages across this pie chart. But really non-verbal communication in for the most part is accounts for over half of what is transmitted.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: What is understood how much we rely on body language to actually understand and trust what is what is being said. Phone takes up the next huge trunk, and then the words we say are really actually a very small piece of that puzzle.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Go ahead.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: It has been challenging, as we present, you know, a
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: workshop on communications in a virtual space. We've all had to get fairly savvy at a virtual spaces, but there are ways in which, you know, we we can be kind of intentional. It definitely matters whether or not we have a You know, our our
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: cameras on. I think it also matters quite a bit
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: whether or not if your camera is off, whether or not you have a picture that shows up kind of representing you. But in a way I've I've certainly been very conscientious of, like the little box around me, and thinking about You know. How do I take up space? How do I still talk with my hands? How do I like actually communicate
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and and kind of keep some of the authenticity that happens when i'm in a room with somebody in that virtual space? So i'm. I'm. Very conscientious of lighting distance from camera.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: all my hands waving around my head as often as possible, but ways in which we can still kind of connect with folks that engage in a meaningful way.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And do you ask people to turn their cameras on, or how do you navigate the space of the fact that people get fatigued from being on zoom all day with their camera on it's interesting. It's different for me. I think if i'm doing
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: kind of a a committee meeting where I do like to see as many faces as possible, because I want it to be like we are as close to sitting around a in a circle together as possible. When I teach, I definitely encourage.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Students have their cameras on, but totally understand that kind of zoom fatigue in a just post lunch. Our meeting like this. I kind of imagine some folks are still trying to eat and or
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: scramble drill for the rest of their afternoon. Well, well, being present, so I always encourage folks to have cameras on when possible, but trying to give a lot of grace to
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: the need occasionally to have your camera off.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and I should have said this before. I obviously just asked the question. But you're welcome to keep asking questions as we go or or add comments in the chat, and i'll be watching when i'm talking. So feel free to put stuff in there. If you want to raise your hands. It's a small enough group. We can do that as well.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Yeah. So
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: that was a little bit on the non verbal piece. And again the big takeaway is that non verbal communication accounts for a lot of what is transmitted and what is felt by what we say.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and most of what we're going to talk about today is verbal communication that can be oral and written. We'll talk a little bit about. How do we kind of navigate conversations? And how do we think about doing things like writing emails?
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: When were we face to face? What what shifts when we're in a virtual setting as well? So those that's kind of the branching of what we'll discuss today.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So purposes of communication. I
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: will admit it took me a ridiculous amount of time to find the images for for this slide, but i'm actually quite pleased with it. There are kind of different ways in which we communicate with each other, and
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know. Sometimes it is just one directional, so you'll see if we are one directional and yet kind of cooperative that is really discourse. Kind of a lot of of teaching dynamic right like that's a lot of kind of discourse.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: if we are kind of one way, but more in kind of a competitive manner like that's the diet tribe. We pretty much transfer clear of that in our communications with one another.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: however, for kind of in the 2 way, communication, which is a lot of what we'll focus on today, and that cooperative setting that does become dialogue. And then in a more competitive setting it becomes debate. So it helps a little bit to to even think about when you're going to communicate, whether it's kind of
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know, interpersonal one on one, or with the team. Or if you're doing kind of a a bigger group, institutional level communication like, what is the purpose of your communication?
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: And that can kind of help you kind of anchor in on on. What is it you're trying to do? Is this discourse or dialogue as this diet, tribe, or debate?
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: This slide? I want to actually pause and see if there's any kind of questions or comments as you're kind of thinking about these 4 different purposes of communication.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Very good for now.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: alright and feel free. We'll come back and put this slide up a couple of times over, so feel free. If questions come up to think about it.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Now, if we think about the dimensions of communication, we can almost think about it as the levels, it looks a little bit different when we're doing kind of interpersonal communication that that one on one conversation versus when we're trying to communicate with our teams, which many of us probably do quite a bit.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and we won't touch on it too much. But we certainly have done a lot of thinking about what this institutional messaging look like. How do we want
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: folks to think and feel. And how do we help folks, you know, who are in leadership? Roles be authentic and be human in kind of communications at an institutional level. Certainly as Trish and I've been involved in a lot of the COVID-19 response communications. That's something we paid a lot of attention to.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: For this workshop. We won't talk too much about the institutional level, but we're going to run a couple of case studies, one thinking about kind of those interpersonal communications. What can be really challenging in that space, as well as kind of team communication as well?
Trish Kritek (she/her): So with that in mind we'll start with a first case, and this is just for everybody to contemplate, and i'll read it off, and then I have a question for everyone in the room.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So over the last month.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Doug is right like to work Class lab. Put it in the setting where you work and or where you lead.
Trish Kritek (she/her): 3 times 2 colleagues have come up to you to talk about challenges they have had with working with him, including
Trish Kritek (she/her): a lack of responsiveness to emails they sent or request for help or portions of shared work in general. They're feeling like he's not been particularly responsive. and you're concerned that this is going to impede his success in his current role.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and you could be his supervisor if that it works for you in your world, or you could be up here. If that works for you in your world. It doesn't really matter. But with this scenario in mind, our first question for you is.
Trish Kritek (she/her): what emotions come up as you anticipate this potentially challenging conversation.
Trish Kritek (she/her): How are you feeling as you think about the situation with Doug, and you feel like you might want to talk with them. What are the emotions? What? What? What's your feeling as you're thinking about it.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and love to hear from as many of you as possible, and slide out synonymous. Put your put your thoughts
Trish Kritek (she/her): out there. What are you feeling?
Trish Kritek (she/her): Anxiety.
Trish Kritek (she/her): dread a little stronger than anxiety? Nervous, concerned.
Trish Kritek (she/her): frustrated, annoyed.
Trish Kritek (she/her): A lot of anxiety. I like. Ug: I think it captures an emotion quite well, very familiar. Okay. Ambivalence not sure. frustrated and anxiety frustrating and getting a little bit bigger, apprehensive, thoughtful.
Trish Kritek (she/her): composed nice unease
Trish Kritek (she/her): resentment
Trish Kritek (she/her): more frustrated. Curious.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I love that word.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Lots of lots of different emotions, most in the not super excited, some more neutral, and then a few that are a little bit more positive. We're comfortable in this space, and I, you know, and i'm going to hand it back to you. But I would just begin by saying, I think that's extremely common, and I think it's part of the reason that some nice.
Trish Kritek (she/her): We avoid these conversations, and I think that's part of what we want to talk about as we move into this case, so i'll hand it back to you.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So one of the things, and this largely comes up in that kind of non verbal communication piece is to kind of keep in mind how much we
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: impact someone else just by kind of how we show up. So way to think about this is that our brain has mirror neurons. So we have neurons
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: whose entire purpose is to read the emotional state of the person with whom we're interacting. and without ever becoming conscious of it, we actually start to reflect back their emotional state
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: adaptively. This has been an incredibly powerful way in which, you know, humans are able to build Community and connection is that we are able to kind of mirror each other's emotions and really read each other's emotional states.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: However, this can be really challenging. If you think about, you know how much
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: someone who is really feeling a whole lot of stress or anxiety or anger. If they walk into a room, you can almost feel the temperature in that room rise. and one thing that they, I think it'd be really helpful in that I try to to be conscientious of when i'm stepping into a space that I know might be a bit heated, or a conversation that might be that he did.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Is I intentionally try and get myself into a pretty calm and compassionate state, because, as as shared Constantine. Not sure who's a great calling up at Northwest Hospital. One of the things she said early on in the pandemic that really stuck with me is this line, that calm is
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: just as contagious. It contains this panic or fear it's. The more we can actually get ourselves into that calm state compassionate state
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: when we go and have that difficult conversation
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: that can actually start to bring down the temperature in the room and bring down the temperature of that conversation actually helps us stay calm and approach with curiosity rather than kind of that frustration and anxiety stress some of the those you know, what you through in the slide out in terms of those words that
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know when you see somebody who is feeling that you feel it too, and it can actually heighten.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: How do we get ourselves calm? It becomes a really good question as we move into these, these potentially challenging and charged one on one conversations.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Do you have ways that I know we're going to talk about this more as we go forward. But is there any micro practice you have to kind of get yourself out of feeling anxious.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and we'll talk about some strategies for moving into those conversations. But do you have any micro practice for that?
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I definitely, I think.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: recognizing. And it's it's just to in this letter like recognizing what my own kind of gut reaction might be of like goodness. This feels a little. I can feel anxious if you know. I'm feeling a little stressed, or you know a bit concerned about this conversation.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and give me myself a chance to kind of breathe for a minute like intentionally kind of, you know.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Try to bring myself down and call myself, and also I almost start asking myself some some questions and trying to get curious around what's happening for the other person. So for me, maybe even some preemptive perspective taking
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: helps me kind of lower lower the temperature a little bit, and get myself into a a more compassionate state. and that, I think can kind of
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: help me enter into a conversation in a place that that will be more generative and less likely to bring up a defensive, this and somebody else
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: good. So this is a a beautiful quote from Victor Frankel.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and it's a way I think of. Of how do we manage our emotions? And really, how do we recognize some of our reactivity.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space is our power to choose our response, and in our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I will say it has been very hard given kind of the chronic levels of stress that we've been through over the last several years
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: to maintain and hold that space. I've got a kid who, you know, was for at the beginning of the pandemic Southern now.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and I early on. I joke like, you know, I don't think I should be allowed to parent and go through a pandemic, because that that stress we're under. I felt like so reactive to everything around me and my kind of want to push all of my buttons. So over time I've had to, to the best of my ability to get really good at kind of folding that space between kind of the stimulus and how I respond to really be thoughtful and try and choose how I respond.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I've certainly seen that as time is one on that, it's, I think, really hard on folks within our system
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: that you know, if you're in a clinical setting. You know, patients who are more reactive family members or more reactive even kind of calling to collect the interactions across our system, I think, have been at times a bit more charged, and so trying to the best that we can
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: really called that space, and choose how we respond as a way of managing our emotions is a powerful step towards.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: And then, you know, hopefully gathering and thinking about compassion, as we then kind of walk into to the hard conversations we need to have.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think, Thank you for all of that, and I think we want to acknowledge that all of that is kind of before you even think about.
Trish Kritek (she/her): How are you going to approach the conversation, or what you're going to bring to that conversation? So we're going to go back to that case. Now we're going to actually give you about 10 min to talk with each other in small groups about.
Trish Kritek (she/her): First of all, how do you even begin the communication? How are you going to reach out to Doug and say that you want to meet? Let's presume you're a supervisor of Doug and say, you want to meet.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And then how are you gonna approach that discussion? And you heard that people come from lots of different backgrounds, do lots of different stuff. And yet I think this situation could happen, and probably all of the places that I heard about as we talked.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So so you can take a picture of this slide, if you can't remember, but I I think you get the gist of it right like there's been stuff going on. and people will come and talk to you about
Trish Kritek (she/her): not following Doug, not following up with emails, request for help, etc.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So
Trish Kritek (she/her): 2 questions we're going to send you off
Trish Kritek (she/her): to talk with each other. Spend a minute at the beginning, introducing yourselves. You don't have to spend a lot of time, but it's nice to know who you're talking to.
and then
Trish Kritek (she/her): talk through the 2 questions. We'll give you 10 min, and then we'll come back. We'll we'll share by slide. Oh, mostly, you know. If you want to tell us some more, we'll talk through what you came up with, and then we'll kind of build upon that with some more skilled building. Okay, so
Trish Kritek (she/her): we'll send you off to rooms. Start my my stop watch now for 10 min, and we'll see you back shortly.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Welcome back. Welcome back. I see lots of cameras on, because that's great. You were talking with each other
Trish Kritek (she/her): all right. We're gonna welcome your voices. But before we welcome your actual voices. We're going to give you a chance to to give us a couple of your thoughts. So we had a discussion. We didn't make you have a scribe, or anybody who is going to report out so you could just share in your conversation
Trish Kritek (she/her): what themes emerged about how you would approach this discussion. What are some things that came up, and that could be like what you shared? It could be some really clever thing that a colleague shared.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Tell us. Some tell us some things that came up. So, leading with compassion, and wondering about what's going on with the person, I I think that's a really nice place to start from, and I think it's a a place that you might pivot to from that first emotion. So thank you. Let's see what else Other people had to say
Trish Kritek (she/her): openness great, I think, and and it was like almost about the word I was going to say curiosity
Trish Kritek (she/her): on being curious about what's going on. I think we'll help you in this framing of this conversation. Transparency: okay, we'd love to hear more about that about what you want to be transparent about if anyone wants to share. I'd love to hear more about that. But you're sharing your screen.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Oh, thanks!
Trish Kritek (she/her): There you go now. We're sharing my screen.
Trish Kritek (she/her): getting more information about the situation. Yeah, that makes sense, because
Trish Kritek (she/her): that this is with the curiosity. So maybe there's, I can assure you that I have any of these conversations, and there's almost always 6 different perspectives to every situation.
Trish Kritek (she/her): concern and curiosity. And I think that comes into that concern and compassion. Often when something's going on with somebody where they're not performing to the way that we expect them, there's something else going on in their lives. So, pausing to wonder about. That, I think, is really a great strategy that I would
Trish Kritek (she/her): reinforce
Trish Kritek (she/her): other things that people had as names. and i'll keep watching screen. Thank you for telling me so that I wasn't looking at it.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I'm curious if anyone wants to talk about how they're going to approach Doug for this conversation. How would you start out
Trish Kritek (she/her): that
Trish Kritek (she/her): getting to the point of bringing these things to your conversation, and i'll welcome you to raise your hand if you have something you want to share. You can say something that somebody else, said Jim. I see your actual physical hand raising love it.
Jim Apisarnthanarax (Radiation Oncology): So we actually had a very interesting discussion in our group. I think we all agree that the actual engagement should either be in person or through zoom, but sometimes so. So then the question is, how do you
Jim Apisarnthanarax (Radiation Oncology): a purchase situation to schedule that appointment? Right?
Jim Apisarnthanarax (Radiation Oncology): You'd be cryptic or less cryptic was kind of because if you say, hey, there's something I need to talk to you about better in person.
Jim Apisarnthanarax (Radiation Oncology): period.
Jim Apisarnthanarax (Radiation Oncology): or like, or versus actually give a little of a heads up on what the topic is going to be about, and it was interesting. Hearing it from both sides of the people that have had that done to them versus more of a supervisor role.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And so yeah, did you come up with something that felt like
Trish Kritek (she/her): kind of. But you're right. I think that tension is there right, so something that felt like the best of people.
Jim Apisarnthanarax (Radiation Oncology): Well, it definitely the people that have have been on the other end don't like the crypticness of it, and I think we didn't hear from everybody in our group. But I
Jim Apisarnthanarax (Radiation Oncology): There was a majority that that crypticness just causes anxiety.
Jim Apisarnthanarax (Radiation Oncology): and so there it needs to be a little bit of a heads up, but it's a little bit of a of a balance, because then you don't want the discussion to actually occur in that email or or text.
Jim Apisarnthanarax (Radiation Oncology): So a little bit of enough to give a heads up, but not enough that it ends up just being the actual engagement.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Yeah, okay, I think that actually resonates with me. I'm: I'm curious. If other people have a reaction to that, have something they want to share. Because I think that tension is there. So often we reach out by an email, and I think, giving some idea about what the topic is is helpful, because otherwise people.
Trish Kritek (she/her): at least in my life, when I get a little bit, I craft a whole separate narrative.
Trish Kritek (she/her): that they or may not be the actual narrative. I don't know if that has happened to anybody else in the room, so giving some people some anchoring points, I think, is helpful, and I strongly want to endorse what Jim said, which is and not go into the holding by email, because email has no tone, and it would be very hard to digest.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I also might add, and again, i'll welcome other voices from the room which could be an or anybody else, that then, being able to have that conversation relatively soon, because putting that out there and then leaving someone sitting in that space for all quite a while, can be really hard. So I I think that kind of
Trish Kritek (she/her): a little bit of a signal about what it's about availability
Trish Kritek (she/her): showing that concern
Trish Kritek (she/her): in your email as well, I think, is another thing that can temper that a little bit, and some of that curiosity in the email without getting to all the details or some thoughts. I have other people other thoughts on that, because I think this is one of the tensions we have, and sometimes is, the barrier to ever having the conversation, because people can't even get to the point of saying, hey, would like to talk.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I definitely like the the idea being pretty upfront and and saying, like.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Hey, you know, noticed a couple of things I just want to check in and see how you're doing
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: so. It's like pretty clear what the topic is.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and really focused on like the thing I I want to do is check it, and see how you're doing.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and that way that you know he kind of disarms again. There's there's not a huge need to be defensive or to
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know. Kind of come back with with
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: anything other than like. Oh. you know how am I doing so ideally? These these conversations feel like somebody is paying attention and cares.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: And also you can have, like a pretty transparent conversation around kind of what's happening, and you know
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: often I've kind of said.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Is there anything I can do to like
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: help you, you know.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: to the behaviors that we're really looking for for you to be successful like. Is there anything in my my work, my work.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: schedules, etc., to really support you? Because I want to see thrive like that. You have to support these folks, I think.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Yeah, though, I would you put all that in your email, or that's more in your conversation, or in the conversation, I would say, but I would start. I would start with the clarity of what
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: what the topic would be.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and kind of the the support of language as best I could in the email.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Yeah, I I think that's very helpful. And if others have thoughts on that welcome them. I will see the other words that people have typed in the side of, and and I see this kind of tech taking the temperature about. If Doug's ready for feedback, and I think that's important. And
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think you're going to lead with curiosity and trying to understand kind of where Doug's coming from, and what else might be going on with Doug before you even get into the feedback part. But you want to free it, as this is why you're open the door
Trish Kritek (she/her): preferences for how people received that feedback. Many differences. Yeah. And you might ask those questions even when you meet. I think that that's a reasonable day to consider finally response to addressing events of concern. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): I would agree with that. And I think again, once you open the door to have this conversation. It's on you a little bit to try to be available to have the conversation, because, leaving someone in that limbo space is pretty hard on folks.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And then I really like this kind of a safe space for conversation, and approach with curiosity.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and we'll talk a little bit more about that. Approach with curiosity in a second, and and I think I say that word like a 100 times a day, and everyone who works with me gets tired of me saying, like i'm curious, or i'm curious about this, but embedded in that comment also is giving this enough space and time
Trish Kritek (she/her): where you're not going to be distracted by other things where you can actually listen.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and and actually attend to to what's going on. I think that many of us all of us are so busy that even finding that time is hard. So if you're gonna have a more challenging conversation, giving yourself
Trish Kritek (she/her): the
Trish Kritek (she/her): the little bit of flex space so that you can actually invest in the conversation. So you can spend that time listening and being curious, in addition to sharing forwards and things that might have been raised as concerns
Trish Kritek (she/her): really appreciate all those comments, and I think they they lead in nicely to to kind of talking through, and
Trish Kritek (she/her): your thoughts as you as you navigate the space.
Okay.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So, coming back to our purposes of communication.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: what do you think about this this conversation with Doug? Are you hoping for
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know which. Which piece of the puzzle are you kind of hoping for? As you're engaging with Doug?
Lorenzo Azzalini: And can you please explain again the difference between this course and diet.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Okay, so I would say, discourse is more of a.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know, cooperative, and we see kind of the 4 elements around the diamond there, so kind of the the cooperative on the top, and a little more competitive at the bottom. And so if we're kind of just speaking to someone, or it's a one way conversation, or to me one way communication.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and it's cooperative. Then you're kind of in a discourse. But if you're in that kind of one way communication, and it's fairly competitive. That's where we kind of get to diet. So that's a bit of the difference. Is it? Is it cooperative or competitive
Lorenzo Azzalini: in terms of the the purpose, the communication. So that would be just a matter of tone and slide differences in the objective of your what you're saying. Right?
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I think so, you know. Tone certainly like I think you know. Give me people, directives, or try, and kind of you know. lay down the law. I think that kind of comes across this entire tribe
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: as opposed to the communication which you're, you know, educating somebody sharing a thought, or you know, making a request like I feel like that. Probably lands more discourse.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Yeah, I think of a discourse as a little bit more of like informative and dye tribe is with a little bit more of a perspective that you're trying to impart, and on
Trish Kritek (she/her): which way things should be going.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So if you're sitting. If you're going to try and sit down with dog, what are you hoping for in terms of your your purpose of your communication?
Trish Kritek (she/her): Are you asking people to put it in the chat, or speak up
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: me out or throw it in the chat if you like.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Good. Same dialogue. Thank you.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Yeah. I think you know what really comes out in terms of, especially with that Curiosity is for the kind of want to stick to dialogue mine actually to listen to here
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: as we kind of go into this this kind of conversation. and you know, hopefully, you know, thinking of staying out of kind of that debate. And often, I think if we, you know.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: if we go with statements, you know you've done X. We expect why, then we can kind of get into debate. I think sometimes that that leading with kind of curiosity and support.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: can you actually help keep you in dialogue and kind of out of debate? As Trish said. She often starts.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know, a statement or a question with like I'm Curious that, but it really kind of helps, you. you know, intentionally go towards a question rather than a statement that then somebody can debate so trying to kind of think about. What are the ways in which we can keep ourselves
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: in a question, mode rather than statement mode. I think that kind of helps us in dialogue versus debate. In that sense.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Trish, go ahead. Thank you.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Who i'm like in Sri Lanka. I just saw your wait. Which means, why am I talking? I think that could be really helpful in that it it does kind of get you to pause.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and you know.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: think about kind of you know. Am I actually listening, or am I just reloading, speaking back, and we'll definitely get into a little bit of that as well. Thank you.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: one kind of core piece of of kind of understanding of human communication is that we're we're stuck with this kind of fundamental attribution error.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So we think about our own, our own actions what we're trying to communicate a ways of being in the world, and we touch ourselves by our intent.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: All right. How you know our intentions, for how we show up. We judge other people by their behaviors what we see them doing.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and we make up stories about their intent.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and most of us tell negative stories. And so this gets into kind of when we hear about. You know the behavior that has been engaging in.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: especially for a manager. We we might get frustrated by them.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and we we kind of have a negative lens potentially on what is happening with Doug. And so it's good to kind of check some of that attribution, error, and
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: check our assumptions of kind, of what is the intent of Doug's behavior, and really to kind of stay in curiosity around, like what's going on, and not, or at least picture double check that the
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: we are telling ourselves that fill in the gaps.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: The Jim's point about sharing quite a bit kind of in the email of what is this going to be about the vague like, hey? We need to talk.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Let's set time to to meet face to face, like you can tell all sorts of stories around what's what's happening in that communication, and it's so hard to read tone again. And if we're not face to face
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: that it hopes, I think, to actually kind of.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know, share more upfront, so that there's less story to fill in, but to recognize the stories we make up when we hear about behaviors that are taking place.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Trish! Go ahead.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So really, what's happening here is, you know, behind the scenes is human negative bias.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: so we tend to to have a hard time kind of holding in positive comments. But, like you know, we have our critiques. Come, stick to us. So there's there's this great saying that you know
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: the compliment. Slide off us like teflon and critique. Stick to us like like cell grow, and you know, if any of you have to, and you've got, like, you know.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: 30 teacher evaluations and 28 are glowing, and 2 or negative, like the only thing you can remember, like the 2 negative teaching evaluations and everything else
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: gone. And so we have this this negative bias for our brains Kind of go to that, and you know, in a sense.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: in terms of evolution, and it was very good to pay attention to to the threats or the critiques, or the you know the negative things in the environment rather than just kind of smelling the roses. So it was good to kind of be on edge and looking out for for kind of threats.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: However, it's it's kind of created this space where we over emphasize kind of negative stories or negative bias, and under appreciate kind of the positivity.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So this this 5 to one ratio. Essentially.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: humans Basically, need to hear 5 positive com like comments or compliments to every one critique to break even, and I think many of us are actually more skewed than that.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So essentially to to really kind of think about building, trust and kind of the work environments that we're in.
and really in kind of all of our relationships. I think it's very powerful thing to be
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: good at, and pay attention to calling out the positive things we see each other doing, and kind of building up
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: that that 5 to one ratio, so that when we have a critique or a hard kind of conversation that comes up.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: We'll actually have enough trust built to really be willing and able to engage in that conversation
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: without defensiveness. So you know, if I if I've got a colleague that comes from out, it's like, hey? And I think we we need to talk about an issue that somebody has always spoken well about me in the work. I'm. I'm actually excited to have that conversation, and I I can easily engage in hard things when trust is built, so trying to be intentional about trust building among kind of your teams and your colleagues can be really helpful.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So another piece of the puzzle is, we have this kind of inference and observation confusion.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: So after we guess at what people's intent was.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: we forget that that was a guess all along.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and then we treat that as though we're fact in our brains, and most of us don't check our stories, and we kind of act on those guesses. So when we we see a behavior
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: that somebody else makes, we create the story of what that intention was.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and then from that we treat that as fact, and because we don't check our facts. We then kind of make all sorts of like.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know, setting stone presumptions around
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: who a person is, and how they show up in the world based on behaviors. And then stories we've told about.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: And this is something that can be really really helpful to kind of check our own facts kind of check our own stories as we go in communications with, you know, colleagues and with our team members.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: so that we're giving folks a chance to to kind of really kind of tell us their story instead of us filling it.
The gaps
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: a big piece of that, and it's probably one of the biggest words both words will use today is really about with curiosity. So how do we? How do we do that.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and it takes some intention, because again, we have that human negative bias
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: to to pause it actually suspend our assumptions.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: give ourselves a chance to ask a question. and you'll notice still here you'll feel assumptions coming up
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and getting frustrated at dug to behavior, and if we could pause and practice that inquiry, and I I would do this even in advance of communicating with like. I wonder what's going on for Doug.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Gosh! I know people really want to show up and do really well at their jobs, and show up and be great people in the world. So I wonder what's going on for Doug, what's happened in there.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: And listen, Don't plan your response.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: That actually kind of comes out of Sri Lanka's. You know weight as well that acronym of can you actually listen.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and even kind of reflect back your understanding of what was said before you start to speak.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and i'll often find, especially in a kind of heated. You know, conversation.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: If there's a point made that I disagree with, I kind of feel like I almost immediately need to say that i'm just so focused on the thing I disagreed with. But I've actually stopped listening. and it can be really helpful to kind of let go of the small disagreements and try and give yourself a chance to listen to somebody wholly.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and not just be making a list of the small things to respond to that Really, don't capture the bigger, bigger piece, the piece of the or the coming in the box there. That statement I actually found this incredibly powerful, and I feel like it also helps people feel that you've really listened.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: If you pause and just say.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: is there anything more you'd like me to hear before I respond? And that is really really helpful. It's like I, you know.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I'm not just like when in my turn i'm just making sure I fully heard what you had to share.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Is there anything else you want me to hear Before I respond? I think that can actually be a really really powerful and kind of thoughtful way of sitting with what can be, You know, a challenging conversation.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think sometimes for me.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I know i'm making those assumptions, and I try to get to that curious place, and it's hard to do it on my own. So sometimes a conversation with a trusted beer about kind of how i'm seeing this.
Trish Kritek (she/her): they can help me take that to help do that perspective taking. And so I tell Anne about a situation and her ability to say, oh, well, could it also be x, or could it maybe be why, or could there be something else that's going on related to the competing demands with this other part of Doug's job, or whatever it is.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and and I think it's a good exercise to get good at doing on your own, and I think I do that pretty well out of the time, and I still struggle at times. And so, having a trusted peer, that you can
Trish Kritek (she/her): kind of bounce those off, and you know, to to overshare. I do this in my personal life, too. So sometimes Andy goes insane when i'm saying like, oh, well, couldn't it be this, or couldn't it be that that's going on with this thing at home, and it's just a practice that I think doing with other people sometimes is helpful as well.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So I I do think it takes intentionality like, and said to to keep doing that, and I I would also echo that kind of when you feel yourself getting ready to have a rejoinder to whatever the person saying it takes practice to kind of put that out of your head, and just fully listen, but it's a great practice.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Excellent.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I'll pause, and we will take a break since we're coming up on on the hour. Mark here in a couple of minutes, but I want to pause and see if if folks had thoughts or questions from kind of what we've we've shared both with kind of the case with Doug, and then kind of thinking about
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: kind of our own, manage our own emotional states and our own negative bias as we're kind of entering into challenging conversations.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: You're welcome to do kind of the the real hand hand raise, or the participant hand raise, or you can, for a step in the chat
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: any questions or thoughts. At this point.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Sarah Kim, I go and see you.
Sara Kim: Hi and i'm eager to hear how you may approach this scenario, so I have the intention to shape. My conversation with Doug is a dialogue, but Dog meets me
Sara Kim: with the debate sort of approach.
Sara Kim: What do you do? What are some of the words you use, or kind of. What do you do? What strategies do you use? You know, in the space of curiosity?
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Gosh! I feel like
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I feel like if one of the best ways I I think of kind of disarming debate
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: is through kind of listening and asking questions. I think once somebody is like
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you want to hear my perspective. You want to understand why i'm thinking or feeling the way I am.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I feel like that drops from debate into kind of that. That dialogue pretty quickly.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know. And so to me, I think debate is
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: kind of flares up when somebody thinks you have a perspective that they need to try and move. And instead, if you're like.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Hi, i'm i'm just curious about what's happening.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and I want to hear your perspective that I think that really disarms pretty quickly.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Kind of how how often I think if I got the you know, even a best intended email of like. We need to sit down and have a face to face conversation. I might come in
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: ready for a debate or ready to kind of defend myself. And so I think there are some ways, both in kind of that initial communication and in kind of structuring
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: the conversation. I would probably lead with questions, and like.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know, before before getting into kind of
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: what has been reported to me, or what i'm concerned about just like, how are you like. Is there any? I'm just curious what's been going on for you, and that tends to really shift your pretty
Sara Kim: I love. Thank you. That's so beautiful I love. How you do it in such an unflappable manner.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: for sure
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: any other thoughts or questions
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: since one last thing i'd like to kind of trish is commentary on getting a second perspective.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: One thing I recognize is that when when i'm having an emotional reaction to something. and I might be in a bit of a heightened emotional state. I'm: feeling stressed or frustrated.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: like basically my my creativity and flexible kind of thinking.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: It's much much smaller when I am stressed or frustrated, or emotionally heightened. And so I think it can be really really powerful to be able to ask. You ask, You know, share this scenario, and then ask questions of somebody who is not emotionally
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: trigger by the situation, or emotionally invested. And let somebody who has, like a whole lot of creative processing available to them.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Do some of that work with you, and that can be really, really a powerful way to get perspective when your mind is going to go to that negative bias, and what might actually hinder down your thinking.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: having somebody to actually work with. to kind of open it back up can be really helpful.
Trish Kritek (she/her): all right. We and and I could keep talking about this for forever. But we want to give everyone a chance to stretch. If you have questions that are bubbling up, or things that you're like. I don't know about that. Put them in the chat. We'll try to address them as we go forward, but we're going to take a 5 min.
Trish Kritek (she/her): 5 min break, so we'll come back at bypassed.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Turn off your camera, stretch your body to get some water, whatever it is you need to do, and move back at 5 past.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So welcome back We're going to get you talking again right away.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and then we'll kind of build on that. So we're going to go from the interpersonal that Anne was just talking about
Trish Kritek (she/her): to the team and communicating with the team and based on the things you told me you do. All of you are in some type of team.
Trish Kritek (she/her): We're going to give you a case that you can tweak to make it real realistic for you again. So here's the second case we're going to talk about.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and that is.
Trish Kritek (she/her): you're bringing the other a new team to work to to work on a project, and you know that there are some folks on the team who are excited about it, and they're champions for the effort, and they're excited to be there.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And then you have some people who are much less enthusiastic about this initiative, whatever it is, it could be doing something new in your lab. It could be doing something new on your administrative team. It could be something new with a clinical process
Trish Kritek (she/her): educational space whatever.
Trish Kritek (she/her): you know. You're going to be working together, though, for several months. So you're going to putting together a team that's going to be durable for a while
Trish Kritek (she/her): could be longer than that. and we're going to talk about 2 different places of communication. The first one is, how do you start that first meeting.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and then the second part is, how are you gonna work around engaging all members of that group to be part of this team or create a team.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So 2 different aspects of communication for you as a leader as you're starting a new team in the setting.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and we're going to send you back to the same groups you are, and we're going to give you a little time to talk, and then we'll talk about these processes of communicating with the new team meetings, etc., so we'll give you about 10 min again. We'll send you off now and then we'll come back and walk through some ideas about this we'll see in a little bit. Welcome back.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Welcome back. all right. Based on the fact that some people are being whisked back at the last minute. It sounds like you were engaged in some conversation, so
Trish Kritek (she/her): i'm gonna start off by just asking you the first question and see what you came up with, and you can put it if you want to talk. You're welcome to, and i'm gonna have put it up as a slide. Oh.
Trish Kritek (she/her): how did you plan to start this first meeting?
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think we want to have some intentionality, but what we do at the start of a meeting. So what are the things as you're bringing this team together. How are you going to communicate to them and start this meeting?
Trish Kritek (she/her): Let's hear some thoughts from the group.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and again you can steal the clever idea of your colleague. If they had something really great that they shared in the group.
Trish Kritek (she/her): no one will know that would be called learning introduction. So getting to know people Icebreaker. Okay, we'll talk about that.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Have a smaller premium with the naysayers. Great. I think the idea of talking. Doing some pre work in these kind of situations is a really good idea. And again, maybe leading with some curiosity to kind of talk to that gratitude share the why, why are we doing this? Yeah, I think you're never wrong to to lead with gratitude. So that's great. Some intentions.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and maybe some common common intentions in this. That's great.
Trish Kritek (she/her): We'll talk more about some of these things as we go forward. I'll hear a few more voices. Make sure everyone understands the goals of the meeting for projects to have shared goals.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Thank you. So that's kind of like gratitude. Same idea of roles and understanding kind of who's in the room
Trish Kritek (she/her): sharing with the group? White individuals have been invited to the team. Why are they there? And and they might not know why it's there. Sometimes we are invited to meetings, and we're not sure why we're there.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Introductions emphasize that skepticism can result in a stronger product. Yeah, i'm going to talk about dissenting voices, and how important dissenting voices are. And I really like this to kind of listen to concerns. And
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think often when we're leading a team. We think that our job is to always talk, and this coming back to listening is a really nice reminder, asking the group about their interest in the project and what they would like to get out of it. Yeah, again. That's curiosity. You're You're manifesting curiosity in different ways
Trish Kritek (she/her): in this different setting. All of these are wonderful, and I'm going to kind of highlight a bunch of this as we move forward, and I I think there resonates with what I have on slides.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think you're trying to at that very first meeting. Think about how you're going to create a space for all voices and make sure that all voices can be heard. And that means both people who are enthusiastic as well as dissenting perspectives, because they are going to make a stronger project.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So I like what people said at the beginning. Many people said, get to know people. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): introductions are important
Trish Kritek (she/her): and understanding people's. Roles are important particular people don't know each other, and sometimes I I enter into spaces, and people say like, I think everyone knows everybody it doesn't matter. Have everybody introduce themselves. It's a really good strategy because you don't want to be that one person who's like, actually, I don't know that person. So just assume that you're gonna all introduce yourselves, and you can do their names and their pronouns, and you can do their position.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and I think it's even more interesting to get to know people as people. And so
Trish Kritek (she/her): we were just talking about this at a retreat we had last week, that I have had an evolution in my thinking about the time I take at the beginning of meetings to check in with people. I'm an intensivist at heart, and I like to get to the business, and
Trish Kritek (she/her): I honestly, i'm gonna really give and a lot of credit for this. But during the pandemic we slow down a lot to check in with people.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and it was really important to check in with people and kind of take the temperature of the room before we started. So some of that was about taking the temperature of the room, how people are showing up in that moment.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and that's led to a practice where pretty much every meeting I lead ranging from, you know, chairs of the school to my team. We do some kind of checking at the beginning, and some of them are lighthearted, and Some are more to find out kind of how people are showing up and somewhere to learn something new about people.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And and I think, having some creativity and fun with. That is well worth the 5 min it takes. Now, if you have a team of 50 people that could be very challenging.
Trish Kritek (she/her): But
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think that part where you actually slow down to get to know who's in the room and understand folks as people will help with kind of the ongoing messaging. Now I'm going to share one that we started doing a lot during the pandemic at start a meeting to take the temperature, and that is to ask people
Trish Kritek (she/her): right now as they're showing up. If they had to describe how they're feeling at this moment as the weather.
Trish Kritek (she/her): what would be their personal weather right now. So you're gonna do it with me. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): what is your weather right now? Are you feeling optimistic? And it's blue skies? Are you having a crazy day, and it's a level. 5 hurricane. Is it
Trish Kritek (she/her): kind of hazy out because you're feeling kind of like i'm not sure what i'm getting out of this workshop, Whatever it is. it's not the what actually is outside which looks like it might be thunderstorms.
Trish Kritek (she/her): It's. How are you feeling right now? What's your weather. So let's see what people's. Weather is right now. Tornado. Okay. So that tells me something about who's showing up in my room. My, I love the use of an emoji Sunny. But, Wendy, okay. So there's some conflict when muggy, warm sun, cool breeze.
Trish Kritek (she/her): easy, lethargic, human. Oh, you can feel how that person showing up cloudy. But there's blue patches, a little optimism
Trish Kritek (she/her): store clouds looming like the actual other sunny. But Wendy fire burning all around me. Whoa! That's important for me to understand.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Clear and calm, sunny, but with a dark cloud on the horizon. I understand that emotion quite a bit.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I do it with Slide. Oh, and in some settings I do it in person and other things. But I ask other things of folks in the room not always about how they're showing up, but also just who they are as people. And and I think that that part of it getting to know people and showing that you really want to know people as people is really happy.
Trish Kritek (she/her): some you with a chance of mute. I love that it's a great, but clouds coming in
Trish Kritek (she/her): so you can see, so I don't even tally it that I've got 4 sunny people and 3 cloudy people. I don't need it to tally, but the point is as you start those meetings
Trish Kritek (she/her): getting to know people a little bit. People call an icebreaker. I usually do is kind of check in It could be something kind of novel and fun and making people laugh the other day.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And those things were this: this column called One Funding and the In the Huddle. We talked about something that made you like cry could laugh so hard that you cried the other day. It was a great way to start a meeting. It put us all in a really good place. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): I encourage you to do something like that. And then a lot of what you said. How are we going to function as a team. Why are we all here?
Trish Kritek (she/her): What's our agenda? What are our priorities? What's our common purpose? What are we coming together to do as we start this meeting.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and and I would say that in terms of setting a tone and communicating with the team
Trish Kritek (she/her): being strategic, and how you start meetings is really important. I'm going to take a step back.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and and i'm going to say actually, before you decide to have a meeting and you're going to prop for a meeting, because I think
Trish Kritek (she/her): good meetings rely on having prepped the first question I would ask all of us to ask, and I ask myself always is, Does this really need to be a meeting?
Trish Kritek (she/her): So if what you're trying to communicate is really over here on the screen, and it's really a discourse. This change is going to happen.
Trish Kritek (she/her): This is the new thing that we're going to do.
Trish Kritek (she/her): We are having, you know, whatever it is that is going to just be the case, and it's really discourse.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Then you probably could send an email and not have a meeting.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and I think we all have meetings where people just report stuff out to us, and I think all of those are ones where we need to pause and say, is this communication better just in a written format, as opposed to in a sit down and talk format. However.
Trish Kritek (she/her): for the most part, once we get into anything over here where we're going to have dialogue or debate, and both, I think, are healthy.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Then we're going to be thinking about bringing people together in a room, whether it's virtual or real.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and and I think, coming back to what is the purpose of what we're doing. So, if you are in a meeting regularly with people where it's just presenting out presenting out. Then I don't think we're taking advantage of the part where we're coming together.
Trish Kritek (she/her): We come together so we can have something on the right side of this this page, and and I think, coming back to those concepts of what's the purpose of the communication
Trish Kritek (she/her): as important as we think about that now. once we decide that that we are going to say Yes. this is really a meeting.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Then I think the the next question is, do you have the right people there to have the dialogue or the debate, because both are valuable that you might need. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): in general I I pause and think that through a lot.
Trish Kritek (she/her): As a matter of fact, when I first bring a group together, I almost always ask the group who's whose voice is missing. Who's not at the table?
Trish Kritek (she/her): Who did? Who did I forget to make sure that they're here. and I don't think I've ever had a group where nobody could think of a voice that we were missing. Now there it can be excessive voices, and you can't have every person everyone always represented. But
Trish Kritek (she/her): there might be key perspectives often the ones that are different than the people at the table that you need to represent. So asking that question, I think is a good stopping point.
Trish Kritek (she/her): as you think about how you're going to get people to talk, because
Trish Kritek (she/her): if you're starting a communication, and you say, whose voice. Am I missing? I think it's also saying I care about all of these voices, and including the ones that maybe I didn't think are important to be at the table.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and I do that. I I think that thinking about that in an iterative way is helpful. You might forgotten a perspective, and you engage them later, the more you can do it or up front the better.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And then I think you got to some of these things in some of your comments already. But the things I think about is I'm. Bringing a group together for the first time is, what's your agenda? What are we going to be spending our time doing, and i'll give you some sample agendas in a second.
Trish Kritek (she/her): What's the stuff that might be pre work? What might help us have a better conversation. What can I communicate in advance? That's work that I do to set us up for success when we come together, and i'll just make a rule of thumb that
Trish Kritek (she/her): it needs to be more than 24 h in advance, or all you do is annoy people that they got a bunch of stuff that they can't read, or that they wish they could have read, and they didn't, and now they're annoyed so
Trish Kritek (she/her): give it at least 48 h, and i'll also say that as much as people think. It sounds good sending it a lot long. You know, more than a week in advance. Nobody looks at it so somewhere in that week to 48 h is a sweet spot for sending stuff for people in advance.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And then I love. That someone said this consider any pre meeting conversation. So you said maybe i'm going to talk to the naysayers in advance. creating a space where people can actually express those dissenting opinions, or ask the questions, or, more importantly, you can lead with curiosity and understand before you all come together, might be a good strategy depending on the situation. So I very much appreciate that suggestion that somebody shared.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I'm just looking.
Trish Kritek (she/her): That's okay. I was like, am I supposed to understand that? Because if i'm supposed to understand that then i'm in trouble. But as long as it's not something i'm supposed to understand it's all good. Okay.
Trish Kritek (she/her): When I was when I was a baby administrator. Nobody told me how to run a meeting, so i'm gonna be explicit for a second. I think it's really important to have an agenda if you're running a meeting, and I show you 2 examples of some agendas from this hospital and the system.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Sometimes they have things like, who's going to be there.
Trish Kritek (she/her): They all, we should say kind of what are the topics? I'm going to suggest saying, who is going to leave that discussion? And some timeframe is useful when I make a an agenda. I also sometimes think about talking explicitly, communicating explicitly. Is this going to be a place where we're going to make a decision.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Or is this something where we're just gonna have some discussion?
Trish Kritek (she/her): Is it really informational?
Trish Kritek (she/her): Is there a space for everybody to be sharing so part of an agenda is for you to be rigorous about how you're going to use your time with people and make that transparent. But part of it is also a process for you to think about.
Trish Kritek (she/her): How do I want to spend this time with a group of people and communicate that upfront so that they can get the most out of that conversation. That dialogue, or that debate that you're going to have.
Trish Kritek (she/her): These are these are 2 examples. There's many more
Trish Kritek (she/her): if you find yourself going to a meeting, and you're in charge, and you, Haven't created an agenda. I think that's a good time to pause and think maybe I should create an agenda. There are some where we just have free, flowing conversation, and I do those with my team. We often have a very loose agenda, because it's really about
Trish Kritek (she/her): coming together and collaborating and sharing ideas. But if you're bringing the other a brand new team like this case, I think, having an agenda is important, and
Trish Kritek (she/her): sometimes something comes up that you need to blow up your agenda. All of a sudden there is conflict over something.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and you would do more harm to the situation by not embracing that moment, and having the discussion and the debate in real time, and saying the rest of this agenda can be put aside for today.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So part of being a leader and kind of leading that that dialogue is understanding the times when you're going to hold true to the to an agenda, because if you don't hold true to the agenda, you're never going to get there.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and other times when
Trish Kritek (she/her): the team is not going to function as a team anymore or ever get to being a team. If you don't give some space for this conversation to happen right now.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and that's part of kind of you feeling that out as you lead in these spaces, and I think it's particularly challenging at times.
Trish Kritek (she/her): But I think it's important.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Now, once you get to the point of actually bringing the group together, you're kind of leading this conversation moving forward on a team
Trish Kritek (she/her): Some pearls about running a meeting.
Trish Kritek (she/her): keep track of time, and, as I said, allow for those needed to versions
Trish Kritek (she/her): somehow keep track of who's contributing
Trish Kritek (she/her): and what they're contributing. And the reason I think that's particularly important is that you want to make sure that there are people we all know these people. There are people we are going to talk more.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and there are people who are going to be less likely to contribute.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And so part of your skill is to try to create a space where all those voices can be heard. Now that might mean that you pre meet with someone to empower them, to, to bring their voice to the table. It might be that you solicit their input and actually
Trish Kritek (she/her): ask for their opinions. And I think that's where you have to kind of feel out the people in your room. But you're going to be trying to make sure that you hear from everybody.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and sometimes that means saying, hey. you know.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and i'd love to hear more about your thoughts about this, because I know X. Y. And Z. Something about her that invites her as an expert or a unique perspective that you need as a group to here. So keeping track of what's being attributed, and who's contributing
Trish Kritek (she/her): I this I've heard some people they don't love the word amplify, but I I i'm going to use the word amplify, because it's exactly what
Trish Kritek (she/her): the the the team that worked with Obama, used in the setting of a situation
Trish Kritek (she/her): that happened when he was President, where, in his small cohort of his team.
Trish Kritek (she/her): his staff, they noticed that the that when women contributed.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Often those voices weren't heard, and those perspectives were often attributed to somebody else after a woman had shared it in that space.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and they began a practice of amplifying the contributions of women in the room by saying things like
Trish Kritek (she/her): as I just heard Kim suggest. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah, or I agree with Karen that the best next step would be blah blah blah blah
Trish Kritek (she/her): you as you lead, and try to create this discourse, can also do that by amplifying the the input of people whose voices might not be heard, and that it could be because
Trish Kritek (she/her): they're a woman. But it could also be because they're a person of color. It could be because they're lower in the hierarchy in a hospital or in the world of research. Or it could be that they're just a quieter person, and it's helpful to bring their voice forward. So thinking of the ways that you, as you lead, this discourse.
Trish Kritek (she/her): can bring forward and amplify those voices in the spirit of us, not hearing voices that are sometimes not not acknowledged
Trish Kritek (she/her): I i'll, I'll ask you, and to show me an emoji
Trish Kritek (she/her): about how you feel about silence. So if you feel very comfortable
Trish Kritek (she/her): with there being a prolonged period of silence, give me an emoji of your choice.
Trish Kritek (she/her): You feel really comfortable with just silence.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Okay, you're going to note that there were some emojis, but not a lot of emojis, and I did not put up an emoji, because that's not my strength, and should have put one up, because I think she's better with silence than I am.
Trish Kritek (she/her): so she can up the snail. But it was hard to see.
Trish Kritek (she/her): One of the things that I would encourage in terms of communication is sometimes you gotta give more space for folks. Oh, I see that now. Give folks a little bit more space, particularly if they're gonna take a little bit more time before they want to jump into that conversation, jump into that space, or maybe they process in a different way than
Trish Kritek (she/her): then some of us do. particularly when there's a more of a competitive type of communication going on. Some people will just step back and not want to be in that space at all, and sometimes a little bit of silence will allow
Trish Kritek (she/her): people to enter into that that conversation more so if you're somebody who did not put it up, an emoji practicing.
Trish Kritek (she/her): sitting with silence is a really good strategy, and sometimes it can feel ridiculously long to you. And yet for other people in the room it feels completely normal and and comfortable, and I didn't ask the people who put up emojis to say something, but I bet they could sit for quite a while with it, being quiet
Trish Kritek (she/her): and and kind of roll with it. and then I think the other part of your job is to
Trish Kritek (she/her): at the end come up with some kind of summary of what you're talking about, whether those take homes or next steps, or where you're going, as as a group, or what you need to kind of dig in more, or who's missing somehow summarize at the end.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So I see the question that says, do you have any suggestions on how to approach suggesting agendas and these tips for a meeting that you are not running, i. E.
Trish Kritek (she/her): You're going to a meeting, and there's no agenda, so
Trish Kritek (she/her): i'll share a couple of thoughts I see an unmuted you can share, and I would welcome anybody else in the room, because there's a lot of wisdom in this room to share their thoughts in the chat as I as I go, so
Trish Kritek (she/her): I tend to be relatively direct. And so it it. It depends on where you are in the hierarchy on this, but you might do something as simple as saying it would be great to have an agenda for these meetings, so I can make sure that i'm really prepared for what we're going to talk about, or
Trish Kritek (she/her): it would be great to have an agenda for these meetings, because I
Trish Kritek (she/her): find. Sometimes i'm not sure. If there's stuff I you know we're we're gonna be addressing today, or I need to raise it so that we can make sure it's on the table for next meeting.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So again. maybe being direct and asking for it. or you could be curious.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I notice we don't have agendas for this meeting. Is that an intentional thing? Is there a strategy that that's part of that? And and I would really be curious like not just be fake. Curious, passive, aggressive, Pacific Northwest. Be actually curious about. Maybe there's an intentionality to not having agenda, because I do have some meetings where I don't have an agenda.
Trish Kritek (she/her): but I I think those will be 2 ideas that I have.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And do you have thoughts on that?
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I I want to hear from others as as well. But I I like the idea of
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: being a little bit more direct, if you know. Gosh! It seems like we have a lot to get through.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: It seems like it might be a good idea for us to set some priorities for each meeting, and essentially within that structure. Give yourself a chance to have an agenda, or you know.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Gosh! It feels like, you know.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I want to make sure we're using our time as best as possible as a team here. Is there a way in which we can kind of you know, think together via E-mail a day or in advance or so, and bounce might is around given of what we should be tackling, and each meeting, you know, some way, some way essentially kind of
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: pushing it with best intention to try and kind of move the dial.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Oh, there I see the next question which i'll do in a second. But any other thoughts on that
Trish Kritek (she/her): you're welcome to unmute.
Trish Kritek (she/her): You could say I went to this workshop on running meetings and communication, and they suggested agendas. We should think about that.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I see the other question, how does one have time to make agendas when you go from meeting to meeting there? I mean particularly in my life, which seems like it's meeting to be so. A couple of thoughts on that, and again welcome other people strategies. I often jot down my notes right after a meeting about the things that I think we're going to need to talk about
Trish Kritek (she/her): in the next one.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And I, partner I am. I have the the privilege of having somebody that I work with as an administrative partner, so I will have them help You Remember that I need to make an agenda that that's something that i'm lucky enough to have in my role, but I I often jot them down. I also, honestly.
Trish Kritek (she/her): in the week or so before the meeting will spend a little part of my run in the morning, or my walk in the morning, thinking about what are the things that we need to work on as we move forward and try to remember to write them down when I get home. But you're right, I think, embedded in that is, it takes a lot of time and energy to do this type of communication.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I will say, I think it's time well spent, because the meeting that you have, I suspect, will be more likely to move you in the direction that you want to move in terms of the work you're doing. So that earlier communication helps with the the communication of the group in the room.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I'm going to keep it. Go back. Okay, I'll just that. I tactic I use. I have a bullet journal, and
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know, in the I have a meeting that's a monthly cadence
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: through. I'll have like a title page with that meeting name, and as I think of topics, or as topics come up in the conversations, i'm having another month, i'll actually write them down on that page and my bullet Journal, so that when it's time to go to the make the agenda. I'm not trying to remember what has happened in the last month, and what needs to be on the agenda.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I've actually almost got a pretty scripted, and then it's just prioritization coming up with kind of how much time should be allocated for different ideas. So trying to make it easy and spread over time. And so they almost have it written
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: events.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Yeah, I like Kate's a suggestion about putting setting aside time on your calendar at the end of each week for an appointment with myself in order to do this kind of thing. So I think that strategy of actually blocking out. I call it administrative time. I like an appointment with myself. Sounds even better
Trish Kritek (she/her): where you could do a little bit of the thinking, because If you don't create the space to do this type of thinking, it can easily disappear. And then you're crafting something at the last minute, and it's not really achieving the goals that you're thinking about. So I I think that's a nice, a nice additional strategy.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and keep putting your ideas. And I think, as I said you could. There's lots to learn from each other
Trish Kritek (she/her): the the the last side of just as the second part of what you might have talked about in your group. I'm curious about
Trish Kritek (she/her): what were some of the strategies you discussed about how to engage All members in the discussion.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Were there strategies that you talked about about how you're going to engage everyone. So we heard some like, maybe you meet in advance with some of the naysayers. So I saw that comment before. But were there other strategies that people had about
Trish Kritek (she/her): how we're going to get everybody involved? I I think
Trish Kritek (she/her): i'll pause, and maybe you've already shared them in the last one, and see if there's anything else anyone wants to to share.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Let's say one all
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: it out in a way, I think getting folks to do that check in at the beginning. I think that has
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: kind of 2 really effective pieces in that. You get people talking early and used to having their voice in the room. and a second piece that
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I sometimes have thought about as being pretty powerful. If you have a hierarchy
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: in the room.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and you want to kind of flatten that. So you're hearing everyone's voice asking people a question that they can answer, you know, regardless of who you are, and get to know somebody as a human or a person. And so you see the people in the room as people rather than their titles. I'll share one. I I have asked
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: a you know room. What do you think is the key to this baby at all, and it led to like a very humorous and very fun, but quick kind of check in, and we had a huge, you know, power differential in the room, but that kind of everybody was giggling, and that kind of flattened it and allowed for really robust conversation to follow. So we can do ways of of getting people to show up as humans, and then intentionally kind of create a space where you get more voices shared.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Yeah, I think that those, you know, and I think that's in this kind of concept of icebreakers, and we use the phrase check-ins, but they're the same idea, I think when people contribute expressing your gratitude about what they've contributed. And
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think also, when they contribute something that maybe is different than what everybody else is saying, expressing gratitude for having a different
Trish Kritek (she/her): idea on this, and sometimes that's hard. When you have a vision of what you where you think you should be going. It can be hard sometimes to hear those divergent opinions. So I think, coming back to share purpose and goals, as someone suggested before, is helpful in those settings.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And I think another
Trish Kritek (she/her): take on what Anne was talking about, you know. Listen, Don't. Plan your response. The other way of thinking about that is balancing advocacy with inquiry so often when we're in spaces where we're working as a team, we have an opinion and a perspective, and if we're leading, we definitely have an idea where we we should be going. That's a good thing as a leader.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and you might advocate for that. I think one of the ways that you make sure that you hear other people's voices, is that you balance that advocacy with inquiry? So you're You're advocating for where you think you're going, but you're also curious, and you're also asking questions about.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Maybe there is an alternate and and you're actually open to an alternate pathway. Now, sometimes you're not, and what i'm going to say is, if you're really not open to an alternate pathway. You are not on that right side of the discussion, communication of dialogue or discourse. You're more in the
Trish Kritek (she/her): I mean dialogue or or debate. You're more on the discourse, or perhaps even diatribe. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): if it's really a conversation being open to the alternate pathway.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and thanking people, and being grateful for people expressing those perspectives, I think, often will enable more voices to share the things that they're not necessarily in line with what everybody else is saying in the room.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and we know that diversity of opinion ends up with a better result almost all the time, and diverse perspectives help us get there. So I think these are some, you know, coming back to being grateful, being curious.
Trish Kritek (she/her): creating the the the opportunities for people to save things that aren't exactly what everybody else is saying helps in those spaces to make sure that you hear them, and I and all honesty. Sometimes it's really hard, because you might feel extremely passionate about where you should be going. So, having that moment of self check in about Wow! Am I getting too caught up? And I really think this is where we should be going. That I can't hear other voices is something that I remind myself of in in settings where
Trish Kritek (she/her): you know, I might have strong, strong opinions and strong passion, for where we should be going again, trying to create those spaces where communication can happen in dialogue can actually occur, and debate debate, like I said, is healthy.
Trish Kritek (she/her): If you have a meeting, I think i'll give you some more things that I think are important right after so having something that where you share the take home from that meeting is helpful in terms of communication that could be formal minutes. I think most of the time you don't need formal minutes, but a little bit of a summary email.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and maybe some individual outreach is important.
most importantly
Trish Kritek (she/her): communicating what the next steps are, and what the action items are in a timely way after a meeting is really helpful for moving forward whatever you're working on
Trish Kritek (she/her): and asking people, is this working? Is this not working?
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think a lot of people lot of us think that work happens in meetings. Work happens between meetings, and so
Trish Kritek (she/her): putting out
Trish Kritek (she/her): and communicating clearly about what are the action? I'm. Who's going to be responsible for them? How are we going to do those things. What are you going to own?
Trish Kritek (she/her): And when do we need to come back together? Because it's all about clarity and communication about? How do we go from Point a to point B to point C to point D to finish, if that's what our goal is, or how do we continue to grow as a team. Or how do we pause now and take a step back because we're we? We learned in this last conversation that we need to
Trish Kritek (she/her): re re- jigger. What our plans were.
Trish Kritek (she/her): The communication between when you bring people together is as important as the communication that happens when you're in a room together. So thinking intentionally about the pre-communication.
Trish Kritek (she/her): the space where you come together as a team and the post communication
Trish Kritek (she/her): all parts of those are important as you
Trish Kritek (she/her): as you move forward. I think, Was it Anne's question? You want to repeat the question you asked.
Okay.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Whitney, Can you unmute and clarify for us?
Whitney Neufeld-Kaiser (she/her): Yeah, Sorry. I actually you use. I use that technique with with my students in my classes as a way to do icebreakers. and i'm always hunting for good
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: questions. I didn't quite catch Anne's question. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I I asked folks. I have a slew of these, but I asked Folks, what do you think is the cutest to baby animal
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: totally obscure. Still, just like a one word, you know. Answer like baby owls. But it it ended up sparking like a really kind of fun, playful series of responses. So something like
Trish Kritek (she/her): she's like, I got it. I got baby animal.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Okay.
Trish Kritek (she/her): my last little bit, i'm going to talk about is about communicating by email. We could spend the whole day talking about communicating by email. So if you are going to follow after a meeting or any kind of gathering.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I'm going to just give a couple thoughts about email.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I am not I. I was just having conversation with Barbara Young about being very terse and email. And how on her team, when everyone knows that's how they're going to communicate, they're fine with it. And I think everyone has their microcosms of email. So if you have a team where people can do that, okay.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I would not assume that that's the case for most people. So in general, I think leading in an email with gratitude is a great strategy, and I
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think that people read it differently when you lead with gratitude. And I don't mean something ratuitous I mean gratitude like actually thinking them for the time they spent in the meeting, or the conversation that they had with you, or the energy that they've invest in this or whatever it is.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And then I think also ending with inquiry. asking a question. Does that work for you? What are my missing? What do you think of this idea?
Trish Kritek (she/her): But it makes sense to to do? X Y. And D.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Ending with inquiry, allows there to be some
Trish Kritek (she/her): more engagement again. presuming you're trying to do two-way communication.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And if, after you've, had, a conversation whether that's a one-on-one conversation, or a group, conversation, if it feels too hot for email it is.
Trish Kritek (she/her): if you have to read your email 3 times before you send it, it's not an email.
Trish Kritek (she/her): It's something where you need to go. Talk to the person. and I bet everybody in this room has got an email that
Trish Kritek (she/her): probably was too hot to be an email, and I know that I have sent an email that is too hot to be an email, and I lived to regret it. Now I live to talk about it. So it's not like it's the end of the world, but I live to regret it. And so a couple of other thoughts on that so
Trish Kritek (she/her): email is an art. We all spend way too much time on it, I, you know. Maybe in 10 years it'll be like Instagram as an art. But right now, email is an art for us in the world of communication in the world that we work in. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): if I was going to impart a few pearls about email that I have learned the hard way from not doing it this way every time. Number one. If i'm feeling emotional, Sometimes I write an email with nothing in the 2 line.
Trish Kritek (she/her): not not going to anybody. And it's cathartic to write the email. I might save it as a draft.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I might not even save it a drop. It might just delete it, but I definitely am not going to send it. I'll save it as a drop and let it simmer. The times in my life that I sent an email that I regretted were when I did not do that.
Trish Kritek (she/her): you might think it makes sense to just put someone's name in there, but accidentally you can hit, send, and you may regret it. So I I think draft with no 2. Nothing in the in the name is a good idea.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Sometimes, when we're emotional, we want to include and CC. Lots of people because we want them to know how frustrating the situation is. I have been there.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and I think there are times when lots of people should be cced, and there are times when that's not gonna really advance your cause. So thinking about who to include or not include intentionally is important.
Trish Kritek (she/her): If it feels like, it's a it's a kind of
Trish Kritek (she/her): big deal email. Then, as for someone else to read it, because, as even as Anne said, earlier email has no tone.
Trish Kritek (she/her): people will put their own tone into the email. They will read it with their lens. I definitely read it with my land.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And so, if you're worried how people might feel about what you're writing. Then have someone else read it and ask somebody who you trust. And there was a comment earlier, I think, from Kate, saying like, if I ask somebody, is it just going to be affirming kind of the perspective that i'm coming from? And that that may be true? You might ask them and say
Trish Kritek (she/her): I need you to read this because i'm worried that the way that i'm writing it will be heard. You know this way or that, where i'm worried that I have a blind spot here. I'm worried that my tone might not be quite right. Whatever it is, I think sometimes a trusted peer is a good person to read an email. And then, finally.
Trish Kritek (she/her): there are times when it's on an email. So
Trish Kritek (she/her): if it's something where you're reading it over and over again again. It's not an email, pick up a phone, send a text and say, Can we meet, go for a walk and talk.
Trish Kritek (she/her): But don't send an email.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and if it's longer than a page, it's way too long for an email. So have that internal check that says, if people have to scroll.
Trish Kritek (she/her): It's too long of an email. I think we would all live life happier if we didn't send each other emails that were.
Trish Kritek (she/her): you know, you have to pause, and and i'll just be honest when I get those emails. I don't read them.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I just leave it in my inbox thinking i'm going to have some time later to read this when I can really focus. And often I don't get back to it so focused.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And and you know, with some attention to like
Trish Kritek (she/her): how you're showing up in that space.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I am sure there are other people's, pearls that you have for email communication. And, as I said, I've learned most of mine by doing it wrong somewhere along the way, and I still have been perfect in many ways, including in my email. But it is a form of communication that we use all the time.
Trish Kritek (she/her): And so, having some intentionality about how we use it to communicate, I think something I would emphasize. And do you have any other pearls about email
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: roof? No, I think you hit on the the biggest. Just the tone piece. It's hard to over emphasize like without
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: the piece of human negative bias, often will read a more negative tone into what was said, and I, I think, from as a recipient of emails. It's a really good practice kind of pause. And if you're curious, just even replying just like.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't quite sure. You know your intended tone of this message. Would you mind like. help me understand where you're at with this that can actually be helpful
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: rather than just setting yourself run with the negative story.
Trish Kritek (she/her): which is very easy to do.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Okay. I'm going to hand it back to you and
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: sure and click forward for me.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: All right. So what we like to do at the end of any of our kind of workshops or sessions is Just take a moment and let you have a chance to reflect. We covered a lot today.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know. We talked about nonverbal communication. How powerful that is, how powerful tone is within verbal communication, thinking about both, you know, Oral and Britain. We talked about kind of, you know, both kind of
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: competitive and cooperative communication one way and 2 way, really thinking about it for all of our animals. We talked a little bit about interpersonal communication versus team, and we didn't focus too much on institutional conversation or communication, but thinking about their different layers to think about, as well as different modes of communication itself.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: And then, gosh! We went to a whole lot in terms of negative bias.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: kind of ways of of kind of thinking about our own emotion.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Communication, which is, I think, can be really powerful, talked about a couple of studies, and then kind of got into thinking about meetings, thinking about being effective with the team and kind of email communication. So a lot look for you to just take 1 min and see some folks typing already. Thank you.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: What's your top takeaway?
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Being curious, thank people more frequently. Gosh, I I really
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Now I agree with Trish trying to lead every communication with the Thank you. The Victor Frank will quote excellent
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: agenda, setting tips excellent if you have 3 read to many times. Don't make it an email. I like it.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Emotions yours and other people's. Yes.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: man, I just, you know, I noticed, like, if I have a rough interaction, and I immediately go into trying to communicate with somebody else like noticing my own mood, and how much my mood impacts that next communication. I wish I could get better and better and kind of just passing, and be like who
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: that was not a great communication. And now i'm pausing the intentional about how I show up to the the next conversation.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Let's see listening More building trust. Gosh! How important that is! Especially that gives us that that foundation to have the hard conversations. practice skills for agendas and email be intentional. I love it.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: They didn't know people more, and meetings as people. I find that then that actually makes a conversation and the team dynamic in those meetings
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: more effective. So you know it's it's the give and take of losing a couple of minutes in the front end. You get to know folks. But then, having a much richer discussion, because we do know each other.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Good
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: affirmative marginalized required voices during that. So it is a good skills of practice, and very good thing to be a potential of
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: that you, the people, and the curious difference between judging ourselves by our tent and telling stories about other people's intent. Yes. And then, just you know, basically creating this truth in our mind.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Excellent.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: No, you, I think I've read them all, and i'm going to say I see this question in the chat, which i'm going to right, respond to in a second. But i'm going to stop by saying, Thank you to everybody here for spending 2 h with us. We really appreciate all of your engagement and your contributions.
Trish Kritek (she/her): This QR code is for feedback on the session, so we very much appreciate your feedback. It's how we iteratively change our workshops. It gives us new ideas, and what we could do to bring to our faculty to make this a richer place. So if you don't, mind, please scan this QR. Code, and send us your thoughts, your feedback. We deeply appreciate it.
Trish Kritek (she/her): and very much appreciate the time that you put towards this.
Trish Kritek (she/her): but which we think is really important. How does how to be as effective as possible in our communication? One also think Lisa pears for the coordination that she did for this event, and Anne, as always, for being a great partner in crime.
Trish Kritek (she/her): So thank you very much, and you'll see that the evaluation is also a link in the in the chat right now, and the as Lisa said, there will post the slides and and share while people are giving feedback. I'll just comment on when to use email versus chat.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I would say, Sometimes I use chat or sometimes texting people when I just want to have a little quick comment. But if it's something more than that. I'm gonna when I want to have something that I can come back to and keep track of. I'm going to use email. And I will just say, not dissimilar to today. I have been known to.
Trish Kritek (she/her): I think i'm doing individual response on chat and respond to the whole group. Once in, like the Medical School Executive Committee. So be cautious when you are using chat. And the same way with that you're using email about who's going to get the message. So I think i'm probably anything that I need real answers, and it's not just a kind of banter I probably use. Email. How about you, Anne.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: and
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: or you think chat is in like the chat function in in this versus
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I think you know I was even thinking of like chat, as in. you know, communication grabbing somebody in the hallway. And for that I think.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Gosh! I feel like sometimes the the quick picking up the phone quick grabbing somebody like walking over Nutrition's office like in 3 or 4 min I can. Actually
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: I have a complete conversation that might have taken me much longer and several exchanges on email. So I i'll. I'll often now try and just say, hey, you know, here's what i'm thinking i'd love your thoughts. Let me know, if you want to connect for 10 min by phone, and often people can find kind of.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: you know, 5 to 10 min to to catch up, and it actually saves them time from having to type and reply as well. So I try to offer it as an option, and sometimes it's nice when you don't necessarily want a paper trail of of kind of what you're communicating as well.
Trish Kritek (she/her): Yeah, I didn't understand. But yes, I totally thank you for clarifying that for me, I think also it feels like it's getting heated. That's the time to stop emailing. That's the time to like talk to each other in in real life, around zoom or on the phone.
Trish Kritek (she/her): All right. Thank you all so much. We really appreciate it. It's 30'clock, so i'm sure you're all going to turn into a pumpkin. Have a good rest of your day, and I appreciate you being here.
Anne Browning (she / her) Univ. of Washington: Thanks, y'all.